Overview
Brief Module Summary
The tour begins by discussing the age of the Earth.
Students briefly explore some of the major events that
have taken place in Earth's history before learning that these events,
like the events in US history, can be ordered sequentially in a timeline.
They discover that the evidence for such events is contained in rocks and
fossils. Students learn that the Law of Superposition is used to determine
the relative age of past events and that radiometric dating is used to determine
the absolute age. Students then learn how this information is used to construct
the Geologic Time Scale, a timeline of the Earth's History. The tour concludes
with an exploration of the various time periods and a review of the concepts learned.
Learning Objectives
During this tour, students will learn:
- that the Earth has a very long history;
- about some of the events that have taken place during Earth's history;
- how scientists use the Law of Superposition to determine the relative age of rocks and fossils;
- how scientists use radiometric dating to determine the absolute age of rocks and fossils;
- that the Geologic Time Scale is a vertical timeline representing the history of the Earth; and
- how the Geologic Time Scale is arranged into periods of time based on major changes in biodiversity.
Pre-requisites
None. This tour is intended to be an introduction to geologic time.
However, we strongly recommend that students are introduced to the concept
of "a billion" so they can better understand the references to the long
time that Earth has existed. We suggest including some of the examples from
the activity How Big is a Billion? to serve this purpose.
To Technical Requirements